Response tokens and listener stance

Listeners are usually considered recipients in conversational interaction, whose main activity is to take in messages from other speakers. In this view, the listening activity is separate from speaking. Another view is that listeners and speakers are equal co-participants in conversations who construct the talk together. In support of this latter view, one finds a group of vocalisations which are quintessentially listener talk — little conversational objects such as uh-huh, oh, mm, yeah, right and mm-hm. These utterances do not have meanings in a conventional dictionary sense, but are nevertheless loaded with complex and subtle information about the stance listeners take to what they are hearing, information that is gleaned not only from their phonetic form, but also from their complex prosodic shape and their placement and timing within the flow of talk. This book summarises eight of these objects, and explores one, mm, in depth.

4. From continuer to acknowledgement token: Mm as a token between Mm hm and
Yeah

99

5. The Weakness of Mm: Topic disalignment and zero projection

133

6. Intonation contour and the use of Mm

187

7. Summary and future directions

251

Notes

257

Bibliography

269

“[...] the book is well written. Although the complexity inherent in analysing minimal response tokens is evident. Gardner successfully guides the reader through different analyses. The book is also useful in providing an overview of previous research into minimal response tokens. It will hopefully become a key reference for researchers interested in analysing such tokens in more detail.”

“[...] this is an interesting book to read and study. One does not usually consider such utterances in studies within the field of phonetics, but as they are part of human oral communication their study is fully justified. Indeed, this study has been able to reveal their communicative functions, not only from the point of view of pragmatics or discourse studies but also for phonetics and phonetic considerations.”

“Reading this monograph, I cannot help but marvel at the author's insights into something that is so seemingly trivial but that is so omnipresent in everyday interaction. When Listeners Talk, I believe, is one of the most comprehensive accounts of response tokens to date.”

Bingyn Li, Fujian Teachers University, in Language Vol. 79:4 (2003)

“Garner's thorough analysis of 'Mm' will set standard for future work in this area.”

Colin Fraser, Edinburgh University, UK

Cited by

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In The Handbook of Conversation Analysis,
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